This guest post was written by Geoff McCaul, topic coordinator for HLPE3541: Mental Health and Wellbeing. We recently collaborated to bring some additional mental health content into his topic. I really enjoyed running these sessions with Geoff, Shane and their students. Some of my favourite of the year to be honest. We’re already exploring future possibilities, and it’s exactly this kind of collaboration that helps drive our mental health promotion mission forward.
This semester, we brought students from HLPE3541 into Oasis for interactive mental health sessions—and opened the door to an exciting new collaboration with Flinders’ mental health promotion team.
One of the goals in coordinating HLPE3541: Mental Health and Wellbeing is to ensure students don’t just learn about mental health, but get to engage with the people, places, and services that support wellbeing here at Flinders.
Earlier this year, I had a chance meeting with Ben from FUSA, and we started talking about the idea of helping students connect more directly with wellbeing services on campus. Ben suggested reaching out to Gareth Furber, Flinders’ eMental Health Project Officer. I did—and I’m so glad I did.
From our first meeting, Gareth and I hit it off. It was clear we shared a passion for helping students better understand mental health—not just in theory, but in practice. Gareth offered to run some sessions for our students and suggested hosting them at Oasis Student Wellbeing Centre, so students could also become familiar with that space.
On May 14th, we ran three sessions – one for each of our HLPE3541 cohorts – at Oasis. Gareth facilitated all three (a feat of stamina in itself!) and brought an engaging, conversational approach that balanced core mental health education with plenty of real-world insights.
The sessions covered:
- What mental health is, including common misconceptions
- How we can look after our own mental health
- How to support someone else experiencing distress
What stood out was the interactive nature of the sessions. Gareth’s style invited questions, reflections, and contributions from the students and from me and my colleague Shane, who helped facilitate one of the sessions. It felt less like a lecture and more like a meaningful discussion.
Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Many appreciated the opportunity to hear from someone working directly in mental health promotion and to learn about the broader initiatives happening at Flinders. Several students told me how helpful it was to see Oasis in person and to hear from someone they could imagine turning to for support or guidance.
Their reflections say it best:
What students took away from the session:
“That mental health doesn’t automatically mean mental illness. It helped me reflect on where I sit on the mental health continuum.”
“By improving other personal attributes like physical health and social connections, mental wellbeing can improve too—it’s all connected.”
What students valued about the experience:
“Seeing a psychologist’s perspective gave the content more weight—he brought lived and professional experience into it.”
“It was great to hear how someone working in mental health actually talks about it day-to-day.”
“Sessions like this help make the support services feel more real and accessible—not just something on a flyer.”
“I liked the idea of doing something different and hearing from someone outside the teaching team—it should definitely continue.”
For me, it ticked all the boxes:
- It helped bridge theory and practice in the topic.
- It introduced students to a vital wellbeing resource on campus.
- And it modelled what’s possible when educators and support services collaborate.
We’re already talking about how to build on this next year and in other topics.
If you’re teaching a topic at Flinders and think a collaboration like this might be a good fit, I’d encourage you to reach out to Gareth or the team at Oasis. These kinds of partnerships bring so much value to students and to us, as educators, too.
Thanks again to Gareth and the Oasis team for helping to make it happen.